This invention relates to that type of dumping transport vehicle for harvested cotton disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,148,527 and constitutes an improvement thereon.
Current practice requires that the dumping basket body of the transport vehicle has its volumetric capacity substantially increased from about 850 to 1500 cubic feet so that the basket body can receive and hold two complete dumps from a large self-propelled harvester which delivers 800 cubic feet of cotton per dump or transfer into the transport vehicle basket.
It was discovered by actual testing in the field that due to the physical characteristics of harvested cotton bolls the first dump from the harvester into the vehicle basket will not spread out sufficiently in the basket to allow the complete entry of the second dump from the harvester. It was discovered that a large space on the dump-out side of the vehicle basket was not being utilized.
A second problem is created by increasing the volumetric capacity of the vehicle basket in that the entire load of harvested cotton in the basket cannot be handled by the module builder into which the dumping transport vehicle delivers the cotton. The module builder simply cannot handle and pack such a large volume of cotton delivered in one dump from te vehicle, and it was determined that to enable the module builder to keep up with the harvester the load from the transport vehicle dumping basket would have to be divided into two portions dumped separately and sequentially into the module builder.
Both of these problems are completely solved by the main feature of this invention by providing within the vehicle dumping basket a front-to-rear pivoted and power-operated packer-divider panel which enables the basket to accept the first dump of cotton bolls from the harvester and compact this cotton against the dump-out side of the basket so that the second dump from the harvester can be readily received. The packer-divider panel can then compact the second dump or load from the harvester against the dump-in side of the basket. Following this, the portion of the total load of the basket adjacent to the dump-out side can first be delivered into the module builder, following which the second portion of the load can be dumped or delivered following an adjustment of the packer-divider panel toward the dump-out side of the basket.